


Partners in Crime

by Artemis (Citrine)



Category: Raffles (TV 1977), Raffles - E. W. Hornung
Genre: Comfort, First Time, M/M, Misunderstandings, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 18:26:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18145811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Citrine/pseuds/Artemis
Summary: “Lord, Bunny, what a one you are for melodrama, wandering around in a blizzard and then throwing yourself on my highly dubious mercy.” He clasped my shoulders and I gazed into his eyes, waiting for a moment that did not come.Raffles gave me a gentle shake. “Go and get yourself kitted out for the day and you shall have your luncheon.”I disobeyed him. My hands went to his waist and I meant to kiss him, but he was quick and fey, gone from me in an instant.





	Partners in Crime

**Author's Note:**

> A little late for Raffles Week and nothing to do with any of the prompts, but I hope that you enjoy.  
> Apologies as always for any typos.

“What in heaven’s name were you looking for then?”  
“Inspiration,” I confessed. “I read an article about how Turner used to lash himself to ship’s masts in a storm and such like, and I know that it’s not quite the same thing, but I thought that a winter walk might inspire me.” I rubbed my hands together. My fingers were bright red down to the second knuckle. “Now I can’t feel my hands and my toes hurt. Do you think that I’ve got frostbite?”  
“I think that you’re a damn fool.” Raffles appeared in his sitting room doorway with a quilt bundled up in his arms. At this hour of the morning he still wore his dressing gown and, I suspected, very little else beneath it. Under other circumstances I would have been wicked in my secret appreciation, now my interest crumpled in the face of my physical distress.  
“How long were you wandering around in the cold anyway?” asked Raffles as he busied himself tucking the quilt in around me, over my legs and right up to my chin. His quilt was all the colours of autumn, russet, amber and burnt orange, a thousand miles removed from this icy monochrome morning. It was still faintly warm and it held the echo of his sleeping scent in its soft folds. I breathed in the comfort of it before I replied. “About two hours, I think.”  
“Honestly, Bunny, you’ll be the death of me yet.” Raffles squeezed my shoulder. “Coffee, I think, with a wee dram in it, as our friend Inspector Mckenzie would say.”  
“He’s no friend of mine or yours.”  
Raffles laughed at my vehemence, but this smile faded when I began to cough. “Let’s get that coffee down you. How do you feel? No dissembling now, I want the plain, unvarnished truth, my dear boy.”  
“Terrible,” I admitted. “My head hurts as much as my feet and I feel sick. And I’m still frozen inside, even with the fire blazing and all wrapped up in your quilt.”  
“What do you expect when you walk around in Arctic temperatures for that length of time? Why on earth didn’t you go back to your flat or come to me sooner?”  
“It wasn’t so bad at first. There was a half-moon shining on the misty Serpentine and frost entwined around all the trees.” I paused, realising how silly I must sound. “And then when I felt chilled through and through I tried to get a cab at Marble Arch, but there weren’t any to be had, so I thought that I should bear up and walk back. It’s what you would have done.”  
“I wouldn’t have been stupid enough to go out at the crack of dawn on a morning like this one. Didn’t I tell you the other evening that this isn’t the weather for burgling? The rooftops are like glass and everyone – everyone with any sense that is – hunkers down at home. So we are taking a little hiatus, you and I, as we agreed.”  
“Oh, I wasn't looking for anywhere to burgle.”  
“What were you looking for then? And please don’t tell me that it was inspiration.”  
I was startled by his sharpness, especially as he had been so concerned, even though I had woken him up while the street lights still glimmered on the icy pavements. “It was necessary, like Turner and his mask...mast,” I said with slow and careful dignity because thinking made my headache worse. “Dickens used to walk everywhere and I’m going to write the most amazing novel and make our fortunes, and then we won’t have to go burgling anymore.”  
“I very much doubt it, you’re a clever little rabbit with a pen, but Dickens you are not.”  
“I will, you see if I don’t!”  
“What’s it about then, this amazing novel of yours?” asked Raffles.  
“It’s...it’s in the planning stage, but when it’s a success I’ll be even more famous than you and you won’t like that, not one little bit, but you like the burgling. That’s the trouble, you’d be bored without it, without the excitement and the danger.”  
“Not with you around.” Raffles laid his hand across my forehead for an instant. “God, Bunny, you’re still like ice.”  
“I know. I can’t get warm and you didn’t give me any coffee.”  
He smiled at my petulant tone. “It needed time to brew, but it should be ready now.”  
Raffles went to pour my coffee and I watched the long shadow he cast on the wall through remorseful eyes. “I’m sorry,” I told him when he handed me the steaming cup. “I shouldn’t have sounded off at you like that.”  
“I forgive you for sounding off.” He crouched down to build up the fire that already burnt briskly in the grate. Firelight glowed on his hair and I kept my hands clasped tightly around my cup. The strong Turkish coffee, well laced with Glengarry malt, sent a trickle of heat down into my stomach. It made me feel light-headed, almost as if I were drunk on a few sips. “If you put much more coal on the chimney will catch fire and The Albany will burn down.”  
Raffles didn’t find that notion half as funny as I did and I caught a rare glimpse of worry on his handsome face. “It’s bedtime for you, Bunny.”  
Nothing witty or seductive came out of my mouth in response, the images that whirled in my head could not be caught and brought crashing down into words.  
Raffles touched my hand. “Are you all right?”  
“It must be nearly breakfast time,” I said, one sentence behind. “I can’t go to bed at breakfast time.”  
“You can on this occasion.” He half lifted me out of the armchair and guided my shuffling walk through the door into his bedroom. There be took the autumn quilt from my shoulders and, in spite of my half-hearted mutterings, he acted as my valet. Raffles unlaced my boots and undressed me down to my undergarments before he pulled and cajoled me into a pair of his pyjamas. They were new and unworn, smelling only of camphor and lavender, which was a vague disappointment to me.  
Then I was sliding into bed, with the fire in Raffles’s bedroom banked up to dangerous levels and the quilt spread over the rumpled blankets. He even found an old stone hot water bottle to place near my feet.  
For the first time in hours I started to feel warm and exhaustion followed on the heels of relaxation. I yawned and snuggled down into his pillows. “Good-night, Raffles.”  
He didn’t contradict me and point out that daylight was gathering beyond the drawn curtains. Instead he turned the gaslight down to its lowest level. “Sleep well, Bunny.”  
I was too muzzy with weariness for discretion. “I’d sleep better if you...” I patted the bed. “Stay.”  
There was a moment of silence, of a different kind of cold. “We’ll talk about that sort of thing another time.”  
“No, we won’t, I won’t be brave when I wake up and you’ll pretend...”  
“I rather think that you’re the one doing the pretending.”  
“I don’t understand. What do you mean by that?” I asked, but the only answer was the quiet click of the door closing.  
**  
I awoke to the crystal edged brilliance of a sunlit winter morning. Raffles had opened the curtains while I slept and the pain in my temples made me yearn for dim tranquilly. I rolled over and buried my face in the soft pillow, hoping to find sanctuary in sleep. Memory denied that refuge to me. Raffles had accused me of pretence where there had been none. It had been a strange accusation to make on the heels of all his tender care, but I could recall his curt, clipped words, and they galvanised me into action.  
I turned and threw back the bedcovers, ready to brave the chill of the morning, but warmth embraced me. The fire was still a glimmering halo of orange in the grate. Raffles must have added kindling and coal when he came in, but he hadn’t disturbed me by as much as the creak of a floorboard. Not that he couldn’t be cat silent when it suited him and even I had mastered something of the art of moving noiselessly on our nocturnal adventures. So he had padded and padded out and left me to sleep. Another kindness to contradict his ire.  
Well, I would have the resolution to this mystery one way or another. En route to an explanation I was waylaid by my reflection in his wardrobe mirror. I surveyed myself, a full length crumpled mess in pyjamas that were too long in the leg and the sleeve, with my hair sticking out at all angles and a shadow of stubble along my jaw.  
There was water in the jug on his washstand, tepid in the warm room, and I poured some into the white bowl, stopping when it lapped at the black feet of the cranes swooping around the inner rim. I dunked my face into it and ran wet hands through my hair to smooth it down. Raffles’s razors lay close to hand, but it seemed too much of an imposition to use them without asking his permission. Yet my fingers lingered over the ivory handles for a moment, recalling how I had often stood in his bedroom doorway, watching him handle them with deft ease. Never once had I found an excuse, or the courage, to offer to play barber's assistant.  
My resolution wavered, perhaps I didn’t want to pick a quarrel over one sharp remark, not when he had been so kind, not when I loved him so well.  
**  
Raffles was in his sitting room, with ‘The Times’ newspaper and a silver tea service spread out before him. He was an immaculate as the day in a charcoal suit and a deep blue cravat, with a white rose in his buttonhole. I immediately felt the disadvantage of my unwashed and unshaven state, coupled with the old familiar heartache. Yet I managed an ordinary greeting. “Good morning, Raffles.”  
“Good afternoon, Bunny.” He pointed at the clock on the mantelpiece. “It’s almost time for luncheon.”  
Luncheon, the word stirred ravenous hunger in my stomach, I had dined early at my club the previous evening and not pecked at a morsel since. “Thank heavens for that, I could eat a horse.”  
“Go to Bellamy’s and you properly will, their steaks are not to be trusted,” said Raffles. “I take it that your renewed interest in gluttony means that you’re feeling much better?”  
“Yes, thanks, and it’s not gluttony, I haven’t had any breakfast.”  
“No more have I, since I had a half-frozen idiot land on my doorstep at the crack of dawn.”  
“I didn’t know where else to go,” I said. “Well, I suppose I could have gone home, but this was nearer and don’t I always come to you when I’m in trouble?”  
“Do you indeed”  
There it was again, that indefinable edge in his voice. I didn’t like it, but I spoke from the heart. “Normally, yes, not that I want to impose, but you know more about me than anyone else and I...there’s no one else, only you.”  
Raffles looked at me through lidded eyes. Then he gave that little laugh of his and rose to his feet. “Lord, Bunny, what a one you are for melodrama, wandering around in a blizzard and then throwing yourself on my highly dubious mercy.” He clasped my shoulders and I gazed into his eyes, waiting for a moment that did not come.  
Raffles gave me a gentle shake. “Go and get yourself kitted out for the day and you shall have your luncheon.”  
I disobeyed him. My hands went to his waist and I meant to kiss him, but he was quick and fey, gone from me in an instant.  
“You can borrow my razor,” he said from the distance he had put between us.  
“Perhaps I should just cut my damn throat with it,” I said, bitter in my disappointment.  
“Why? Because you’ve just made an ass of yourself? That’s hardly a rare occurrence, is it?”  
“Must you always be such a cynical devil?” I demanded. “And, no, it’s not rare, I’ve always been a fool for you, but sometimes I think that you’re not worth it, that I’d be better off-”  
“Picking up men in Hyde Park?”  
I stared at him, stunned into confusion. “What?” Indignation rose on the heels of my astonishment. “You think that I...You’ll take that back, Raffles.”  
“The blazes I will! What do you suppose would have happened if you’d been arrested for importuning? Wouldn’t Inspector McKenzie have loved that one? And heavens knows what else you would have confessed to once the police had their claws into you.”  
“How dare you! Firstly, I wasn’t looking for anyone in the park. And secondly, I would never, ever betray you.” My anger faded away leaving me bone weary and almost tearful. “I thought you knew me better than that.”  
“So did I.” Raffles flung the end of his cigarette into the fire. He studied my crestfallen face and then he sighed. “Were you really only seeking literary inspiration in the park?”  
“Yes. I didn’t find it though.”  
He laughed at that. “Poor Bunny, but it’s just as well that you didn’t have more nefarious intentions, you might have frozen your little friend in this beastly weather.”  
“Raffles!” I blushed before I grew bold. “Then you would have needed to find a way of warming my little friend up again.”  
His scowl was back in an instant. “Not if you had been adventuring in the park.”  
Glory be, he was jealous! Jealous of some non-existent tryst on a misty January morning. The grin spread like sunrise across my face.   
“What’s so amusing?” Raffles demanded.   
“Nothing. Everything.” I took a deep breath. “And this time it’s you who’s the fool. Why on earth would I want anyone else if I could have you?”  
“And what makes you think that you can’t?”  
“Can’t what?” I said, rendered stupid by the fire in his eyes.   
“Have me.”  
“You haven’t...I haven’t...I’ve never been sure.”  
“You seemed certain enough a few minutes ago when you tried to kiss me.”  
I nodded. “I was. I am.”  
“Come here then, my dear rabbit.”  
His blatant invitation and his outstretched hand knocked my courage sideways, and I stood gaping at him like a landed fish.   
“Another crime, Bunny,” he said quietly, “so be sure that it’s one you wish to commit.”  
“It’s already done in my heart. I’ve loved you since I was fourteen years old.”  
“Which proves that you are a fool.” He cupped my face in his hands. “My precious fool.”  
His kisses were full of passion and fire, and I responded with the fervour of one who had dreamt of this moment for years.  
“Always,” I murmured, while we embraced with the air stolen from our lungs by the passion of our kisses.  
“You idiot,” he whispered into my hair and there was never a gentler endearment.  
We stumbled like drunkards over the threshold into his bedroom. Raffles with his fancy jacket half off his shoulders and I remember how the clothes I had so admired were now an encumbrance. The jewelled pin in his cravat spiked blood from my clumsy fingers and I trembled when he licked it away.  
Raffles chuckled, throaty and urgent, when I broke two of his fly buttons in my haste. “How will I explain that to my tailor?” he teased.  
“I’ll sew them back on for you.”  
He laughed again when I hesitated, caught again in the mirror, and suddenly aware of my dishevelled, unshaven, state. “I like you rumpled.” He nuzzled my neck. “It makes you adorable. Irresistible.”  
We tumbled down onto his bed, all arms and legs, and burgeoning excitement.  
“Ah,” said Raffles, “here’s your not-so-little friend,” and he did wondrous things with his wicked fingers.  
I groaned and shivered under his administrations. Yet, with my desires all aflame I could not simply lie quiet and let him take the lead. I clasped his wrists and he raised an eyebrow, quizzical and amused.  
Well, I’d jolly well show him. I reared up and laid a line of kisses across his magnificent shoulders before I fastened my lips on to a pert brown nipple. I felt the long shudder of his breath and the wild drumming of his heart. And down I went. Across narrow hips and a flat stomach, grasping his right thigh for balance when I claimed my prize.  
This was everything. We were everything. The whole world. And how I made him groan and buck. Then, when I thought he was beyond stopping me, Raffles pushed me down onto my back and stretched himself out on top of me.  
His mattress yielded under our combined weight, sandwiching me between the soft cocoon of feathers and the undulating strength of his body. We exchanged deep, desperate, kisses and I moved with him, frantic in my efforts, and yet as naturally as if we had been doing this all our lives.  
I was born for this and for him.  
He gasped, God and then my name, the most wondrous litany I ever heard.  
The moment took as both together as I pray that death will take us one day.  
Then Raffles rolled off me, stretching and chuckling, and we laughed together in breathless joy at being alive. At being together.  
A few lazy minutes later Raffles produced a Lucifer match and two Sullivans from his bedside drawer.  
“I do love you, you know,” he said between idle puffs.  
“Good, I’m glad.” It was no vainglorious conceit on my part. I didn’t doubt that he loved me as I loved him. We were bound together now, partners in another kind of crime, and I was content to be forever a felon at his side.


End file.
